Saturday, June 13, 2015

The Wanderer (Silverleaf Chronicles, Episode 1) by Vincent Trigili

Release date: June 12, 2015
Subgenre: Epic fantasy

About The Wanderer:

The Silverleaf Chronicles follow the life of Silverleaf, a dragonmaster who was born into a world without dragons, and doomed to die as a madman alone in the wilderness until a young woman enters his life, and a mysterious army marches across the land destroying all in its path.

Excerpt:


Winter was coming and all the signs foretold it would be a brutal one, but it was not just the weather that concerned me. There was a change in the air and, by the feel of it, an unwelcome one. It was like a persistent feeling of being watched, even though you know you are alone.

To the north the Wanderer sat just above the horizon, blood-red even in the afternoon light. Of all the stars in the heavens, there was no more serious omen of ill fortune than an early rising of the Wanderer in the northern sky. On the last occasion this occurred, it heralded the end of the era of dragons. I shuddered as I considered what it might mean this time.

I sighed and pulled up my hood as I approached a small human town known as Farborn. It was a rural place on the outskirts of the settled lands. The people here would be hard but accepting of drifters like myself. If luck was with me, I could settle here until I earned enough to buy winter supplies and get out before the madness struck again.

I was born too late, a man out of time. I am a dragonmaster by birth, but no dragons remained by the time I was born. Dragonmasters like myself who never bind to a dragon are doomed to live out a cursed life, destined eventually to die alone and insane.

In the era of dragonkind, this would not have come to pass. I would have been born among a large clutch of dragons, and one of them would have chosen me before I was a fortnight old. Instead, I was born alone in the wilds among the forest people, forever doomed to be incomplete.

Generations have lived and died since the last dragon was seen in the skies of Ferrin but, unlike the dragons, dragonmasters were born among forest people and continued to be born regardless of the lack of dragons to bind with. We were born into a life of misery and perpetual exile.

My clan, the People of the Seven Oaks, had seen the birth of many dragonmasters and tried to find ways to help us and keep us stable, to no avail. The last great war had rendered dragonkind extinct and doomed their partners to a cursed life.
As I entered Farborn, humans came and went in its streets doing whatever people did to keep themselves busy in a town like this. They paid no particular attention to me as I headed down the main thoroughfare. 

Farborn was typical of the towns that bordered the wilds. It had no walls and no real garrison. Retired warriors and other stout folk formed the town guard. Dirt roads meandered seemingly at random though the town. The buildings were old and mostly made of wood. A few older buildings were of stone and those were mainly official offices of some kind.

Had Farborn been closer to the capital the roads would have been cobblestoned and there would have been great walls around it, patrolled by soldiers of the crown. All of that took money, and the human king of these lands spent his money fortifying the southern borders where he had enemies to guard against. Out here there was no one to worry about; Farborn was close to the end of the world as far as anyone else was concerned.

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About Vincent Trigili:


Vincent, father and husband of nearly two decades, holds degrees in both Math and Computer Science. In addition, he has published an astronomy journal, numerous articles, poetry and other works.
He got his start in writing fiction as a small child, losing himself in the worlds he dreamed up in order to escape the doldrums of normal life. Now, using his formal education and extensive career experience, he excels in creating fictional worlds of depth and rich fantasy, while maintaining a foundation of reality based on science and technology.

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